Sam Harris on Francis Collins

Dr.Harris has published a sort of continuation for his "saga" against Dr.Collins

To read it please go to: http://www.reasonproject.org/index.php/archive/item/the_strange_case_of_francis_collins2/

Putting aside the obvious irony about the title of the article, Dr.Collins' case is nothing sort of strange at all. The "christian" meme is one of the strongest still available in Western culture. Mr.Collins ravings about his faith are very personal, and should not be read outside the scope of private confessions.

Dr.Harris, a neuroscientist, must know that the best way to "fight" against paleo-limbic activity is to enhance cortical functioning. The "demens" part of the dubiously called "homo sapiens" allows this kind of situation, that is, that a brilliant geneticist and a religious peasant inhabit the same person, as is the case of Dr. Collins. That is not reason enough to make Dr.Collins unsuitable as head of National Institute of Health, on the contrary, a touch of Christian ethics may be helpful in an area that requires prudence in order to be able to abstain of doing absolutely everything that we can do and doubt a little in the name of "what is going to happen if you do absolutely everything that we can do" with the power of a technology that needs some restrain to avoid building unmanageable chaos out of our own uncontrolled inventions.

Sam Harris Scientific Crusade

Dr. Sam Harris, in line with Dr. Richard Dawkins and some others scientists, continues with his Crusade against all forms of religion. I must say beforehand that I am sympathetic with their view, with reserves, which are those that derive from preserving clarity of mind and avoid taking similar paths to those taken by the fanatics of religion from the other side around. One tends to mimetite with that that one hates. Hate is definitely not a scientific approach. I find the proposals of organized religions quite despicable from a rational point of view, and agree with Dr. Harris and Dr. Dawkins about the fact that religions have done a lot of harm to mankind through centuries, and even today. But I strongly believe that the weapons against religious idiocy cannot be the same applied by the advocates of "Sin and Hell".

To see the last article by Dr.Harris published at the New York Times, go here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27harris.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=science%20is%20in%20the%20details&st=cse

And here is my published comment about it, just in case:

As I have pointed out several times elsewhere, Dr.Harris and Dr.Dawkins seem to be acting as the forefront of a new “scientific McCarthyism” Era.One thing is to consider science the best known tool so far to understand the universe -I fully agree with that- another thing is to confuse science with “the ultimate thruth” and act accordingly as the Roman Catholic Inquisitors did beginning a witch-hunting from the other side around. Dangerous path indeed.